1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a safety seat assembly including an occupant support structure particularly, but not exclusively, intended for use in maintaining a child on a marine craft or other type of vehicle. An included stabilization assembly is structured to overcome forces to which the occupant support is exposed, while maintaining the occupant in a preferred, substantially upright orientation regardless of the extreme movements of the vehicle during its travel. A floatation assembly may also be included to maintain the occupant in an above surface, floating position when placed in the water during an emergency situation.
2. Description of the Related Art
The use of child safety seats is universally recognized as an important and even necessary accessory for protecting children and infants traveling in motor vehicles. Moreover, use of some type of supporting seat assembly for children is mandated by either state or local regulations. As such, relatively sophisticated structural advancements have been made in the design and operative features of child safety seats in an effort to better protect a child occupant against trauma in emergency situations. In addition, such advancements are also directed to the use of lightweight, high strength materials which not only serve to protect an infant but facilitate the installation and removal of the safety seat from an intended location within a motor vehicle.
In spite of the various improvements found in modern day, commercially available child safety seats, the basic function thereof is to at least partially enclose and thereby protect the occupant against forcible trauma. In addition a common goal of such devices is to retain the child within the vehicle, typically through the use of various types of restraining harness and like devices. However, even in light of the widespread use and availability of child safety seats, they are not normally designed and structured to maintain the child in a predetermined orientation during unusual or extreme movements of the vehicle during travel, except of course when the vehicle is involved in a collision. By way of example, when an automobile or like motor vehicle is involved in a sharp turn at relatively high speeds, the safety seat and child occupant is subjected to relatively strong lateral forces which tend to displace the occupant from an intended comfortable and protected position. Similar forces are exerted on the seat structure and child occupant during deceleration as well as unusual acceleration of the vehicle. During such relatively extreme movements of the vehicle, conventional safety seats do not normally adapt to the tendency of the seat and occupant to be displaced from a preferred, normally intended orientation.
Another category of vehicles for which known or conventional child safety seats are generally considered to be unsatisfactory is marine craft. More specifically, it is of course known to include various floatation devices on pleasure boats as well as other water craft. As such, floatation devices are available which are specifically designed for infants and small children. However, there is a general lack of product development in the area of child safety seats or occupant supporting structures specifically intended to protect a child on a marine craft, which are also capable of maintaining an occupant in an above surface, floating position in an emergency situation.
It is acknowledged that safety seats or like supporting structures incorporating some type of floatation assembly are known. However, such devices typically lack sufficient structural versatility to include the operative features of absorbing shock in emergency situations while maintaining the child occupant in a preferred orientation during unusual movements of the water craft, such as during harsh weather conditions, high speed turns or other unusual maneuvers. Of course it is well recognized that relatively small boats encounter numerous conditions while traveling which exert lateral or swaying forces on the water craft. Such forces are transferred to the occupants, requiring the use of restraint devices or necessitating that the occupants brace themselves. Obviously, small children and infants normally would not have the strength or the foresight to assume a restraining position or take other protective measures during unusual maneuvering or other conditions which would effect the swaying, tilting, etc. of the boat.
Therefore there is a need in the area of child safety for a seat or other occupant support structure capable of protecting an occupant, regardless of age, against forcible trauma, while simultaneously maintaining the occupant in a preferred, substantially upright position normally assumed by an occupant when traveling in a vehicle. In addition such a device should be adaptable for use on a marine craft so as to protect a child occupant against drowning during emergency conditions.